Rock & Mineral Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ rocks, minerals, crystals, and gemstones — with properties, formation, colors, hardness, and how to tell them apart.
Malachite
A vivid green copper carbonate mineral famous for swirling concentric bands, used as an ore of copper and an ornamental gemstone.
mineral
Copper-Bearing Tourmaline
Tourmaline colored by copper, producing the famous vivid neon blues, greens and teals known commercially as Paraiba-type gems.
gemstone
Peacock Ore
A copper-iron sulfide ore famous for its iridescent peacock-like purple and blue tarnish; often sold as treated chalcopyrite.
mineralCopper
A soft, reddish native metal with excellent conductivity, mined for wiring, plumbing, and alloys like bronze and brass.
mineral
Azurite
A deep blue copper carbonate mineral that forms in oxidized copper deposits, often alongside green malachite.
mineral
Chalcopyrite
A brassy copper-iron sulfide that is the world's most important copper ore, often showing colorful iridescent tarnish.
mineral
Bornite
A copper iron sulfide famous for its vivid iridescent purple-blue tarnish, the classic peacock ore and a copper ore.
mineral
Cuprite
Cuprite is a deep red copper oxide and an important secondary copper ore, prized for its rare ruby-red gem crystals.
mineral
Chalcocite
A dark gray copper sulfide that is one of the richest copper ores, prized by collectors when found as rare sharp crystals.
mineral
Psilomelane
A field term for hard black massive manganese oxides, often botryoidal, mined as an important manganese ore.
mineral
Chrysocolla
A vivid blue-green hydrated copper silicate, soft on its own but prized as a gem when hardened by intergrown quartz or chalcedony.
mineral
Tetrahedrite
A gray copper-antimony sulfosalt of the fahlore group, an important ore of copper and often silver, forming tetrahedral crystals.
mineral
Niccolite
A pale copper-red nickel arsenide, historically called kupfernickel, that is an ore of nickel and gives the metal its name.
mineral
Galena
A heavy, lead-grey metallic mineral with perfect cubic cleavage, galena is the world's main ore of lead and often carries silver.
mineral
Andesine-Labradorite
An intermediate plagioclase feldspar spanning andesine and labradorite, marketed as a red-to-green gem, much of which is copper-diffusion treated.
gemstone
Paraiba Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline famed for its electric neon blue-green color and extreme rarity and value.
gemstone
Neon Blue Tourmaline
An intensely glowing copper-bearing tourmaline whose electric neon-blue color makes it one of the most valuable gems in the world.
gemstone
Goethite
Goethite is a common brown iron oxyhydroxide, the main crystalline component of limonite and rust, with shimmering botryoidal forms.
mineral
Smithsonite
Smithsonite is a zinc carbonate ore famous for glassy botryoidal crusts in blue-green, pink, and yellow hues.
mineral
Gem Silica
A rare, intensely blue chalcedony colored by copper-rich chrysocolla, prized as the most valuable of the blue chalcedonies.
gemstone
Sperrylite
A rare platinum arsenide and the most important platinum-bearing mineral, forming bright metallic cubic crystals.
mineral
Oregon Sunstone
A copper-bearing labradorite feldspar from Oregon, famous for its range of natural colors and glittery aventurescent copper schiller.
gemstone
Grape Agate
Clusters of tiny botryoidal chalcedony spheres resembling bunches of grapes, famously purple, found in Indonesia.
mineral
Blue Tourmaline
Tourmaline in blue tones, encompassing iron-colored indicolite and the rare neon copper-bearing Paraiba, among the scarcer tourmaline colors.
gemstone